Cell phone battery charge and discharge at the same time.

[antimony]

Hi i am sittning here with my Samsung and i am charging it while i am using it so i am discharging the battery at the same time i am charging it, and i am sure that is not good at all. But what i wanted to ask was if it is what is happening, and if it is Litium ion batteries that dos this best or what you say.

I hope you can understand what i mean.

Thanks.

[e2matrix]

Samsungs and most cell phones have very intelligent charge control built in to the phone.   So if you are using more current than your charger puts out (doubtful) by running some very high load Apps you might be discharging the battery a little but otherwise it will just be charging slower if you are using the phone a lot. 

[dieter]

As far as I see, Samsung is using this bad habit indeed. My old S3 run almost ever with the supply, and yet the accu now lasts for no more than 3 Minutes, and even turning on the net draws too much current, so the device just turns off.


More sophisticated charging would charge the accu until it's full and then let it rest as is and draw the req. current directly from the supply.


Anyway, best practice seems to be if you have two accus, one that you use outdoors and off the supply, which you drain the accu to the lowest possible voltage each time before you recharge it, and another one, an old one, that you use when connected to the supply while using the device, eg. at home. Needless to say, you need to reboot for/after swapping the accus.

[e2matrix]

dieter,  you may want to read up on Li-ion batteries.   You should never drain them to the lowest voltage.  They are the opposite of NiMH and NiCd batteries.   Draining them all the way down drastically shortens their life.   From batteryuniversity.com:  " The smaller the discharge (low DoD), the longer the battery will last. If at all possible, avoid full discharges and charge the battery more often between uses. Partial discharge on Li-ion is fine. There is no memory and the battery does not need periodic full discharge cycles to prolong life."[/font][/size]

[dieter]

Didn't know that, thanks. I knew you should not "underload" it, which is where the phone turns off.


Still, it does not explain why my Akku lasted such a short time only, compared to a phone that I solely use to check for sms text on a daily base or so, which O had to charge only about twice in a year.


Also symptomatic is some phone manufactors build them with nonremovable accu, basicly suggesting to buy a new phone every year or so.